When large numbers of stackable articles must be transported in large quantities to another location, especially when the article is small, the article may be packaged in a container to protect the article during shipping of the container. Alternately, to reduce the amount of handling required and/or to reduce the amount of shipping material consumed, the articles may be arranged in a tight grouping, or array of articles. Each array of articles can form a layer of articles that can be stacked on a pallet or a box having a footprint which can be accommodated by freight hauling compartments, e.g., for truck, rail, sea or air vessels.
Palletizing articles is becoming increasingly automated in manufacturing facilities, wherein articles are moved via a conveyor, which articles are manipulated by dedicated machinery onto pallets.
Assembly of article arrays is currently performed using conventional bulk palletizers. Most conventional bulk palletizers build the complete article array or bulk array or article layer and then move or “sweep” the completed array layer or bulk array into position onto the finished pallet stack. Palletizing robots are also used, but most palletizing robots also move the completed article layer or bulk array onto the finished pallet stack. Alternately, the palletizing robots construct an article array by placing individual rows of articles to form the array onto the finished pallet stack.
The current state of the art of bulk palletizers suffers from several deficiencies. For example, articles have a tendency to adhere to the jaws of the article gripping devices of the bulk palletizers. As a result, reliability and stability of article placement in a container or on a pallet may be compromised. In addition, conventional article gripping devices of the bulk palletizers may be incapable of placing or arranging arrays of small articles inside of a container such that the array remains stable inside of the container. This instability may be due to the footprint of the article gripping devices being sufficiently greater than the footprint of the articles. Further, in the event the arrangement of articles must be changed, for reasons such as a change of footprint size of the articles, tooling specific to the new arrangement and special realignment is typically required. Still further, jaws of article gripping devices of conventional bulk palletizers typically apply a different magnitude of compressive force along the length of the jaws, which may result in the inability of arranging articles along the entire length of the jaws.
It would therefore be beneficial to develop and use an article gripping device that does not suffer from the above-mentioned deficiencies, thereby reducing cost of operation and increasing reliability.